Think about it this way. A 30-06 can fire a round that is multiples the speed of sound.
I wouldn’t put it beyond our technology to have small near-super-sonic craft, or even super-sonic craft.
I think the Russians are way behind on their hypersonic tech — they are using nuclear. I think we have a better way, and that energy storage medium is trickling down to smaller craft.
Plus, the military never bothers with Pilot safety when it comes to the new stuff. I mean, they do, but they recruit a breed of folks who don’t mind living on the edge. Even fighter pilots fall in that category.
Fighter planes don’t glide very much at all, they fall like bricks basically. So you are betting each time out that the engines, or at least a engine, will stay online.
If anything we’ve learned from commercial aviation that is a big bet :)
“Plus, the military never bothers with Pilot safety when it comes to the new stuff. I mean, they do, but they recruit a breed of folks who don’t mind living on the edge. Even fighter pilots fall in that category.”
That would be Test Pilots. And yes, we are very concerned about pilot safety. . .cost a heck of a lot of bucks to train a USAF pilot, and years and years of experience before they even make the minimum experience to even apply for the program.
And not only losing a pilot is bad, losing a very advanced new platform that is costly to develop and very costly to build (it is all limited and not mass produced. . .until the technology is “mature” like the F-117.
Each flight is crawl before walking, then as the true characteristics are discovered or verified, it is a slow process to running. All done to protect the pilot and the platform. Computer simulations are not the end all.